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Filing season will be delayed, IRS says

The IRS announced on Tuesday a delay of one or two weeks in the start
of the 2014 filing season as a result of the 16-day government
shutdown to allow adequate time for the IRS to prepare and test
systems. The return filing start date was originally going to be Jan.
21, 2014, but the IRS said it will now start accepting 2013 individual
tax returns no earlier than Jan. 28 and no later than Feb. 4. The IRS
says it hopes to shorten the delay and will announce the official
start date in December.

The government shutdown came at an inopportune time of year. Most of
the work the IRS does to program, test, and deploy its return
processing systems is done in the fall. “The adjustment to the start
of the filing season provides us the necessary time to program, test,
and validate our systems so that we can provide a smooth filing and
refund process for the nation’s taxpayers,” Danny Werfel, the acting
IRS commissioner, said in a news release. “We want the public and tax
professionals to know about the delay well in advance so they can
prepare for a later start of the filing season.”

No paper returns will be processed before the IRS begins accepting
electronic filings.

Despite the delay in the beginning of filing season, the IRS also
reiterated that the April 15 tax return filing and payment deadline is
statutory and cannot be changed by the IRS but that six-month
extensions to file can be obtained by filing Form 4868,
Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual
Income Tax Return, electronically or on paper.

The IRS is apparently struggling to catch up after the shutdown. It
says it received 400,000 pieces of correspondence during the shutdown,
on top of the 1 million items that were already being processed. The
IRS is urging taxpayers who need to contact it to wait if it is not
urgent or to try to use automated systems on its website.

The IRS announced on
Oct. 17 that 2014 renewals of preparer tax identification numbers
(PTINs) are also being delayed because of the government shutdown. The
IRS will notify current PTIN holders when the renewal season will start.

This will be the second tax season in a row to have a delayed start.
Last year’s filing season was significantly delayed because Congress
passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, P.L. 112-240, which
contained many retroactive provisions, in January 2013 and the IRS
needed time to update forms and program and test its processing
systems.

TAX NEWS

President Barack Obama signed legislation that retroactively extended more than 50 expired tax provisions for 2014, allowing taxpayers to take advantage of a host of tax incentives during this filing season.

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